2008 in review

The end is neigh, at least for 2008, that is. As I write this, there are 8 hours left of 2008. As I’ve been doing for the last year, I’m going to take a look back at the last 6 months, what I achieved, what I didn’t and my thoughts on that. Tomorrow I’ll make some goals for the next 6 months.

Overall, it’s been an exceptionally good 6 months. Starting with receiving the MVP award in July, then speaking at TechEd South Africa and again at PASS in Seattle, it’s been a wild ride. Add to that, along with a former colleague, I relaunched the South African SQL Server usergroup in October. Attendance was better than I expected for the first two meetings, with 30 or so at the first meeting and 7 people pitching for a friday evening meeting late in November

In terms of the goals I set for myself back in July, things did’t quite go as well. Of the 3 IT books I ssaid I’d read, I finished one, and that was only last week. I’ve watched no web casts, I haven’t investigated Sharepoint, let alone a second project and I didn’t touch the master’s thesis for five months.

I could attribute that to the new job, and the increase in community stuff that I’m doing, and that would partially be true. The main reason is that I’ve got complacent and stuck in a comfort zone. I’m going to have to do something about that.

Enough musing.

Happy new year to everyone reading this. I hope that 2008 was all you could have hoped for and that next year is even better.